Unhinged
by acorntea
Summary: Winter is harsh and unforgiving. Sweden is at war. For nine months, Gendry has worked maintenance in a remote manor turned research facility. There's bombings every day, supplies grow scarce and the building is falling apart. Entirely Gendry POV Originally a tumblr ficlet because i wanted Gendry to have a pet ferret. Modern Arya/Gendry
1. Chapter 1

_G_endry blew out a thin stream of smoke and scratched the side of his jaw nervously. In his jacket, the ferret squirmed, wiggled and finally pushed its pink nose out, sniffling the crisp air before poking out his entire head, catching the eye of the only other person in the small, hidden garden.

"What is that?"

Gendry eyed the girl up and down. She wore different shades of grey and blue tinted glasses. He'd seen her walking the clinic hallways the past couple of days.

"Ferret." He answered curtly, looking away.

"Second hand smoking kills, you asshole. Even animals."

He chuckled under his breath, a puff of smoke rising from his mouth. "Really?" He was amused.

"Really." He took one last, hard drag before flicking the cigarette to the snow. It hissed.

"What's it's name?" Gendry turned to the girl again. She was inching closer for a better look. The ferret retreated into the jacket.

"He don't 'ave one."

"Can I see?" She slid her form beside him. Gendry stiffened. He was growing irritated and scooted to the edge of the seat, away from the girl. The bench was frozen cold below his ass.

"He doesn't like people," he warned her away.

The bell rang from the courtyard and he was up and walking back toward the building. His boots broke through the frozen layer over the grass. He could hear the crunching of the snow as the girl followed him out of the garden, keeping several steps behind him. He didn't bother to hold the door open as he rushed inside and let the warm air thaw him. When he took the corner at the end of the corridor, and looked back, she was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

Several puke colored maintenance report slips had been stuffed gracelessly into his box. He'd heard the old building always rebelled against its residents in the winter. The civil turmoil had worsen the state of the aging establishment.

Gendry pulled the slips out and read each one carefully. He crumbled the first one since he had already run into the leaking urinal last night and had replaced the gasket. He dog-eared the third slip, turning on his boot to head to the storage room. He would fix the lights in the morgue first. A parcel with new breaker wires had arrived yesterday.

He continued to read the reports as he absentmindedly dug through his pocket, first he pulled out the keys to his storage closet and then the pack of nicotine gum he'd found that morning in one of his pant pockets. There was only two pieces left. He pushed one out and popped it in his mouth.

A distant, thundering boom stopped him in his tracks. He stood still for a moment. There was a soft rumble around the building. The floor shook a bit and the hallway went black before turning green from the emergency lights. The alarms went off and doctors, nurses and patients all began pouring out of doors in a calm, collected manner. Gendry followed them. They all headed in the same direction and took turns down the spiral staircase that lead them to the basement. The bunker was deep underground and the only way in was through a chute with a short, steel ladder.

Gendry could hear soft words being exchanged among everyone as they found a place to sit or stand. The cold room filled quickly. Nurses urged some of the patients who could barely hold their own to lay on the cots that lined the entire south wall of the long room. There was a large water tank next to one of the beds. Gendry sat beside it and leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He could hear the different conversations being whispered through the room. After nine months, he was slowly picking up on the language. He could understand most of what people were said, but he didn't trust himself to speak it without sounding like an idiot, so he never did.

"Where's your ferret?" a small voice whispered across from him.

His eyes blinked open. The girl was standing next to a doctor in a lab coat. She had a canvas book bag hanging from her shoulder.

Gendry shrugged. She crossed the space between them an wiggled next to him on the floor.

"You left him up there?"

"He wasn't mine," he said softly, "And he's not here anymore. He's outside somewhere. Maybe he's already starved to death or perhaps the wolves got him."

"That's better than what they were doing to him here."

Gendry nodded.

In the weeks since he'd first encountered the girl in the garden, he'd come to learn that she was interning under the lead researcher. She'd be there a few months before heading back to England.

"I hate this room," she leaned her head back against the wall like his. "It's stuffy and claustrophobic,"

"It's better than being outside during those drills."

"I can take the cold. Out there you can see what's coming. You can run. In here you're stuck."

Gendry chuckled, "You can't outrun a bomb. You're safe in here, these walls are thick."

"Yes you can. If you're fast. You're trapped in here if a bomb hits and the rubble falls over the exit."

"There's a grate there," Gendry pointed to the far end of the bunker. "It's enclosing a tunnel. I've seen the floor plans. They used it in the late 1920's to cart bodies out to the old incinerators at the edge of the field."

The girl leaned in to his face. She was close enough for him to pick up her scent. She smelled like antibacterial soap.

"I know," she mouthed almost in an almost inaudible whisper. She had a huge grin on her face.

His brows furrowed and he pulled his face away to get a better look at hers. One of her eyebrows twitched up slightly.

He didn't get the chance to ask her what she meant. The bells echoed off the stone walls and everyone began to rise and push off the beds, gathering patiently yet instinctively around the ladder.

Gendry resumed his duties mechanically, his mind on the damned ferret. That afternoon, once the sun set, he took a walk down the lane that stretched beside the canal. Fat snowflakes fell silently all around him. He found the spot where he'd last seen the little guy and tossed the pieces of turkey he'd taken from the kitchens.

While fussing through his pocket for that last piece of gum, he found his lighter and felt the nauseating urge to smoke. He gritted his teeth. The fields were silent all around. There was no sound of birds or cars. He was a good distance away from the manor that he couldn't even hear the humming and groaning of the furnace and generators. He sighed in frustration after he'd stood for well over ten minutes and saw no sign of the little one. The days were growing shorter and the sky was already darkening so he started back toward the manor. As soon as he made it to the path, he heard soft shuffling behind him and when he glanced back, the ferret was there, gathering the pieces of turkey off the snow. Gendry smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

Gendry twisted a fistful of blanket at his side, sitting up on his bed. Five loud, consecutive thumps followed the first set that had startled him awake. He squinted at the glowing clock on his night table, barely able to make out what time the hands marked in the pitch dark. Another three knocks followed.

"Will you bloody wait!" He yelled out, flinging the blanket against the back wall and rolling off the bed. The concrete floor was freezing cold under his bare feet, which created a contrast with the warmth radiating off the furnace ducts.

He fidgeted with the latch and yanked the door open. It was Vlad, the Russian specialist from the morgue, looking frantic and fully awake.

Gendry slid a palm over his face in frustration. "This better be important, it's 3 in the morning."

"The equipment," the man said in his thick accent, "Is fail."

"Again?"

"Yes. And I was in middle of very important molecular cell dystrophy bon..."

"I don't know what the fuck that means Vlad, but can it wait until tomorrow? I'll check it first thing,"

"No it can not wait!" the man began cursing and shouting in Russian, grabbing Gendry's sleeve and tugging at him, urging him to "follow him now," as he wove a shambolic string of broken English and Russian words, of which Gendry tried to make sense.

"Alright, alright," Gendry shouted over the desperate man, asking for a moment to grab some shoes before following him down the corridor and up to the ground floor where the labs were.

"It's all fried," Gendry turned the large piece for the man to see and held the torch closer to the darkened parks of metal and wire. He's been carefully examining the innards of the machine for well over an hour. "The wiring in this building is too old, it's mucking up all the hardware. All of you, with all this heavy machinery, you're gonna leave us all in permanent darkness and cold one of these days."

"No, no. It's new. All of it, it's newer so it's less. It less to work and to run,"

Gendry twisted his face, "No exactly. And it's not that new. Some of this stuff is nearly a decade old. Maybe more. I mean, if you were using some really high-end shit that came out this year, maybe it's..."

"Sven before," Vlad cut him off, "he fix things once, and no more problems. Just once and that's it. This keeps happening to us and it's very frustrating for our analysis. Are you doing good work fixing?"

"For fucks sake, man." Gendry shook his head in disbelief, "I'm trying to tell you, all of this shit, all these machines and computers and everything you're all hooking up, it's too much. Unless you purchase a lifetime supply of diesel for the generators or get someone to come here and rewire the whole manor, I don't know what else to tell you, except it will keep happening. Even then, they'd need to shut sects of this place down while they work, and while they're rewiring they can flag us for other structural issues and shut us down completely. I think best case scenario, you all can work out a system and take turns using certain equipment so you don't strain the building and fry up your machines."

The man stood still for a moment and Gendry feared he'd said too much too fast.

"So... could _you_ rewire?"

Gendry sighed, giving up. "no Vlad," he said in a soft, tired voice, "I can't fucking rewire this place. I'm going to bed,"

"But what about my work?" Vlad cried out.

"Look, we can request a replacement. I'm sorry, I'll talk to Harriet tomorrow," Gendry rushed out of the room before the man could say anything else.

It was quarter to 5 a.m. when he made it back to his room. Gendry cursed and tugged a towel off the hook.

He showered slowly, feeling lulled by the hot water on his back. He fully intended on taking advantage of the extra minutes he had. He decided to shave, which he hadn't done in about a week. He shaved slowly, reveling in the feeling of metal and plastic against skin. As he rinsed the hair and soap off the razor, he noticed the blades were beginning to rust at the edges, but he was sure he'd get a few more uses out of it so he hung it up to dry next to his toothbrush. He looked at his face in the mirror and realized how tired he'd grown over the past few months.

The kitchens were already filled with the aroma of fresh coffee when he walked in. He filled his thermos to the brim, gingerly sipping at the dark liquid, and capped the container.

He swiped his employee card over the reader on the wall and heard the mechanical lock on the fridge click. He pulled the door open and grabbed a jar of oats and a sealed bag of biscuits. He stood for a moment looking over all the illuminated food wondering if he should take something for Jax now, or wait until later in the afternoon.

He would have his hands full with all the repair request that kept piling up and didn't want to carry anything around with him all day, so he opted to grab Jax something later.

"This is the second time this month that you've requested a replacement on these safety cabinets." Harriet read over the request form Gendry had filled out. She looked up at him over the rim of her glasses.

"Yeah," he didn't know what she expected him to say.

"What's wrong with it?"

"It's done. Nothing I can fix. I went over to Harald up in hospice, but he's at a loss. William has been gone for two months now so there's no one else. I know these machines, and this one, like the last one, is fucked."

Harriet's icy eyes regarded him for a moment.

"Look, Vlad's driving me nuts. He wants his machine. He was in the middle of something when it fried up. I don't know what to tell you, except I'm just doing my job here,"

"We won't have the funds for a fourth one," she slammed the _approved_ stamp over the form and filed it.

Gendry gritted his teeth at her tone, taking in a breath.

"Can you also get me a box of Marlboros."

Harriet held out her hand and Gendry placed his employee card on it. She swiped it and handed it back, along with the box of cigarettes.

Gendry took them and walked away, feeling angry, tired, overwhelmed and terribly sleepy.

When he clocked out that afternoon, he welcomed the walk along the canal with eagerness. The sky was grey and sunless. It was easily well past 7 p.m. He lit a cigarette and felt the smoke fill his mouth and lungs as he took a drag. The satisfaction snaked all the way down his limbs.

As he walked toward the ferret's usual spot, he noticed someone else was out in the field. They were kneeling on the ground. When he was finally able to make out their features, he realized who it was and noticed she had Jax in her arms.

"The wolves didn't get him," she said without looking up, caressing the bridge of the ferret's nose with the side of her pinky finger.

"What are you doing out here?"

"Came to feed Cornelius,"

Gendry chuckled. "That's not his name."

The girl grimaced. "You said he didn't have one."

"No, he doesn't, but that isn't it."

"How do you know?"

"Because its a stupid name."

"It's not stupid," she rose to her feet, "and besides, it's better than having no name."

"He has a name. It's Jax, alright,"

Her scowl quickly turned into amusement. She smiled, "Cornelius Jax."

Gendry frowned, shaking his head.

The girl carefully turned the ferret so she could see his face. "Cornelius Jax," she repeated in a serious voice, and looked the furry thing deep in its eyes as if she expected him to show a sign of approval.

"How long have you been coming out here to feed him?"

She shrugged and set the animal down on the ground. "A few days." It scurried over to Gendry's foot and climbed up the trouser leg and into his jacket.

The girl smiled.

Jax squirmed inside for a few moments before crawling out with the wrapped up bits of chicken Gendry had saved up for him. The ferret jumped to the ground and ran into the field, disappearing into a hole under a snow-covered shrub.

"We should get back," Gendry started up to the path.

When the girl joined him, Gendry held out his cigarette to her, but she shook her head.

"That's right," he said, sucking in the last part of the cigarette, "_second hand smoking kills_."

"It does," she said in a soft, solemn tone.

Gendry dropped the butt on the ground, making sure to turn his boot over it.

"How did you know about the underground tunnel?" he shoved his hands into his pockets. "You're fairly new. Not even some of the older staff members know about it. Mostly I think me and the other groundskeeper know. Maybe some of the chemists since their lab used to be in the old incinerator complex."

"I ran into it while taking a walk on my first day here,"

Gendry laughed. "No you didn't, the bunker has an alarm. So does the older complex across the field. You can't just run into the tunnel entrances, they're hidden,"

"Not if you're looking. They're not that hidden,"

"Even_ if_ you're looking," Gendry shook his head. "You can't find them on accident."

"Well I did,"

"I doubt that."

She was getting angry.

"I did. I don't care if you believe me,"

"Well I don't. And I really could care less if you don't tell me how you know. You don't have to lie about it though. Just make sure you keep your mouth shut about them."

"I have no one to tell. There's no one I'd want to tell,"

"Oh? Well you didn't seem to have a problem letting on that you knew they were there when I mentioned it."

"See? You're so stupid. You just admitted that you told me about it first. In the bunker, remember?"

"I only did because you were scared,"

She stopped walking and turned him to face her. "I wasn't scared," she lifted one eyebrow, as if daring him to repeat himself. When he didn't say anything, she rolled her eyes and walked ahead.

A small smile twitched up the corners of Gendry's mouth. He pulled out another cigarette and lit it as he watched her form grow smaller and smaller ahead of him. He sucked in the smoke deeply, and inhaled.


	4. Chapter 4

"In the mornings, the staff at the clinic had from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. to access the fridge and larder with key cards. The shelves were lined with weight sensors, and so essentially you could take food which in turn subtracted funds from your employee account depending on the weight of the items you removed.

After 7, only the water dispensers were available until 11 a.m.

The common hall, which was just the manor's mirror salon converted into a cafe, was accesible at noon for lunch. It was at this time, other than during drills, that most of the staff gathered in one place. Lunch was the only meal time when cooked food was offered. Tables lined the windows that overlooked the gardens. A local man named Gustaf and his sister Margareta would cook and her two sons would serve the food. Sunday was the only day they had breakfast and lunch cooked, but not dinner.

"I'll have the pea soup with crispbread," Gendry told the serving boy on the other side of the counter.

"The pee soup gave me stomach runs the last time," Gendry turned to find Harald behind him, asking Margareta's boy for a second serving of the potatoes.

"Did you figure out the issue with Tesla MRI?" Gendry took one of the thimble-sized ceramic cup that had a dollop of butter.

"Well, the fucking problem with all our devices it that they're not compatible with our power system. Some are too old, some are too advanced. They're donated to our providers, and they buy spare parts and piece them together and sell them to us like they're new. I just finished unpacking five incubators that were delivered last night. One ran for about five minutes before breaking down, and that's exactly where i see the other's heading."

Gendry froze.

"What do they need incubator's for"

Harald shrugged.

Gendry moved down the line. At the front, he heard the clerk fussing with screening reader.

The heavy-set nurse that had his plate on the scale and handed the clerk his card.

"I'm sorry," she spoke Swedish. "You don't have enough funds."

The nurse's eyes grew wide. "What?"

"You only have 52 krona"

"How much would I need to return," he looked over his plate mortified.

"I'm not sure," the clerk shot a glance to the line behind the nurse.

"If I can just go to the service desk…"

Someone stepped out of the line and handed their card to the clerk. It was that girl.

The clerk swiped the girl's card without another glance at the nurse.

"Thank you," the nurse told the girl, taking his plate off the scale. She offered him the smallest smile and took her card, briefly locking eyes with Gendry as she stepped back in line.

The pea soup coated his mouth with gritty, flavourless warmth. Gendry was sitting at the end of a table on the far corner of the hall. His eyes followed to where she sat, several tables down from his. Something about her intrigued him. Her face was expressionless as she leafed through a book she had, settling on a page before looking up right at him. He couldn't read her. He brought the spoon full of green to his mouth, not breaking eye contact. Her eyebrows furrowed into a frown and she lifted up her sandwich from the plate, high enough for him to see. She peeled the pink meat off the top with two fingers, dangling it like a tissue, before she dropped it on a napkin which she folded up and tucked in her sleeve.

He burst into laughter, looking down at his soup cup. There was no way he could even pretend to save some for Jax. He shook his head. When he looked up at the girl once more, her eyes were on her book, but there was a smile on her face.


	5. Chapter 5

The hallway door creaked slowly.

"Gendry," a female voice carried into the room, echoing off the walls.

Growing up, he would have never guessed that he'd one day come to dislike the sound of his own name. Of course, if someone had revealed to him where he would be at age 23, and that he'd be working somewhere where he'd hear his name from two dozen ungrateful mouths a day, he wouldn't have believed them. It's hard to imagine unhappiness outside of the fleeing, silly issues you face as a child. He remembered youth enviously, wishing to go back and appreciate the shit that mattered.

Heels clicked on the tiles and the metal stall door opened, revealing Ness, the head nurse from the hospice wing upstairs. "Harald is sick." She sounded bored. "We need you to install some new equipment,"

"Well," Gendry grunted, twisting in the cramped space to attempt to find a better angle into the toilet. "Seeing as I am currently elbow deep in shit right now, you're going to have to wait. I'll be up as soon as I'm finished here."

There was no answer. She just stood there, watching him for a long and dragged out moment. Gendry didn't bother to look up. _Why won't she fuck off?_ He had to bite his tongue, but wished desperately to ask her just that. _Hadn't she anything better to do?_

She turned away, as if she'd heard his thoughts, and left the room. Gendry could hear her steps retreating down the hallway.

After he finished and was storing the the snake, cleaning the area around the toilet and washing up, Gendry walked up to the third floor feeling weighed down by the unknown task.

"They just came in from Stockholm," the head nurse rolled a pile of boxes from behind her counter. There were three of them, of relatively small size considering the kind of packages they usually got.

"What are they?" Gendry took the clipboard from the top to read the item description box.

"Fume hoods."

"What for? Vlad's lab is already equipped with a couple.."

"That's for the mortuary purposes. Mikael is going to branch into a few side projects and you know he can't stand Vlad."

Gendry didn't care. "Where am I installing them?"

"The old hydrotherapy room. They cleared the isolation tanks out. Dr. Hessel's being transferred to Berlin and there's no one to take over his work. Joel and Anna are leaving with him."

A loud, dragged out blare made everyone in the corridor jump. The alarms. Ness hissed a string of curse words and yanked her coat from behind a chair.

Gendry pushed the parcel cart behind the counter to clear the hallway and followed the crowd down the spiraling main staircase. As they neared the large double doors of the lobby, he could feel the cold air whistling through as everyone marched out. It was biting and sharp. Like needles.

There were two types of drills the manor residents underwent; bomb drills, during which everyone had to retreat into the large bunker underneath the manor, and hazard drills. No one knew exactly what the "hazard" aspect pertained to or who stayed behind to neutralize it. On the day Gendry was hired, he'd been handed his key card, a copy of the plans to the manor and the surrounding land -which he was later asked to return to Harald- an employee handbook which hadn't been updated since 1994, and a spill plan guide. The instructions in it were very vague and only really emphasized on the importance of evacuation. However it explained the significance of the tall wooden posts that held up the yellow banners and surrounded the entire building. These indicated how far back evacuees needed to walk from the manor. Gendry had asked Sven, the previous maintenance guy he was replacing, about the drills. All Sven said was how he'd never been told what the drills were about in the 8 years he'd worked there.

Snow was already piling up in the corners of the steps leading down to the courtyard. In this cold, Gendry knew those steps would ice soon. He'd come by to salt them and the walkways once he finished installing those stupid fume hoods.

As he was stepping down, making a mental list of what he needed to do on top of his usual tasks, he caught sight of that girl.

She was pushing a wicker wheelchair around the large stone fountain, fussing and struggling to move it through the snowy gravel. No one around her helped, even when several people noticed. Gendry trotted over to her, catching the front wheel of the chair and lifting it off the gravel. There was a woman in it, wrapped like a mummy in blankets and towels, a couple more were folded over her lap. The lady's wet hair was plastered around her head.

"What are you doing with the little, old, wet grand-nanny?" he asked as they lifted the entire chair off the wheels and pulled it over the stone perimeter and onto the snowy grass. The disabled patients were always evacuated out through the East side of the manor, near the old car park. The ramps there eased the transportation.

"Wheeling her out," the girl grumbled out in a fiery tone. "I _was_ bathing her," she began pushing the chair forward until they'd passed the flag posts and made it to the "_safe zone_".

"Why?"

"Because," she turned the chair to a stop, and shrunk into herself, shivering. "It's my job,"

The girl pulled her grey jumper off, leaving only a thin, thermal turtle on. "Poor old bird started flailing in the water, nearly drowning us both." her voice softened as she looked to the woman with a flicker of compassion. "I think she forgot what they mean; the alarms," she dropped the jumper on the floor next to the chair. It piled on itself with a sloppy, wet smack. Gendry noticed it was soaked.

"You're all wet," he pulled off his jacket and held it out for the girl. She shook her head, but he laid it on her shoulders anyway and fitted it around her. "What do you mean that's your job, I thought you were interning in the research floor."

"I am, but i'm also putting in hours as a CNA in the hospice unit." she countered the lady, leaning down to her level, and asked her something in Swedish. The girls pronunciation was just as bad as Gendry's would be, but that didn't seem to stop her from speaking the language.

"She'll catch her death out here," Gendry noted as the girl tucked the ends of the blanket snugly under the woman's body, and used a folded up towel to wrap around her head.

"Good," the girl said in a tone teeming with sarcasm. "Better than being probed to death." One look at the woman and the girl's eyes softened again, holding a degree of pity for the small, stiff creature in the chair. She brushed a finger along the woman's wrinkly cheek. "She's tired." She whispered softly.

"You know they keep the bodies after. Ever seen any graves anywhere? How about a crematory? That's why these people are here. Most come here as a last resort instead of going to jail or prison camps. They come here to die, knowing what will happen to them during and after their stay."

"That doesn't make it right. Doesn't mean they're not human. This place is a trick. It's a lie."

"Well, you're the one interning here. I'll assume you have an interest in the field. Otherwise, why're you here?"

"They set up incubators a few days ago. Do you know why?"

"No," he huffed with cold, "why should I know?"

"Well you're the one who installs everything,"

"Yes, but I don't ask questions. It's not my place."

"Incubators are for babies. Why do you need babies in a research facility focused on death?"

Gendry didn't know what to say. He'd wondered that himself when Harald mentioned them a few days back.

"Go on, you're the expert on these machines. What else can an incubator be used for?"

"I'm not an expert on anything. Harald's the biomedical technician here. I'm just some no good uni dropout trying to get by,"

"You just fix things," her tone was dripping with disdain and it was starting to aggravate him, "... you upkeep the gardens and toilets and make sure the lights come on and off and who cares who's benefiting from it."

"That is such a cynical, selective way to look at the situation." he stepped closer to her, keeping his voice low even when he wanted to yell at her, "What you're saying can be said about everyone. Everyone serves their own purpose. You're here. Why _are_ you here?"

From her chair, the old lady whispered something to them. Their heads turned, away from each other and to the chair. The voice was so faint and soft, that neither understood what she said. The girl leaned down to hear better.

"I think she said she's cold,"

Gendry laughed dryly.

"What's so funny?" the girl snapped at him.

His smile faded. "Well, it's obviously cold."

"So?"

Gendry shrugged and turned away.

There were clusters of staff and patients all along the field. Some were smoking. It was late morning, and the sky was ashy white. The wind was slowly gaining speed and carrying swirls of snow with it. It _was_ cold. Just as the little old nanny said. Colder than it'd been the past few weeks.

The girl was still fussing with the woman, speaking to her and rubbing her hands over the lady's wrapped shoulders.

"She's like ice,"

Gendry turned to the manor. "The bells will ring soon."

The girl caught a shiver and huffed out hesitantly. Gendry shook his head and reached out to her, tugging his jacket closer around her. He snapped the buttons closed one by one, his eyes looking over the girl's face.

"You're turning blue," he noted.

She wrinkled her nose and screwed up her face, looking up at his. "So are you,"

An aggressive gust of wind swirled by, carrying with it not only snow, but wafts of smoke from the group beside them.

"Fuck," he felt his body cramp stiff, "it's cold,"

Gendry's hand pulled the girl close and trailed down the length of her arm and into the pocket of the jacket, feeling around inside. He could feel her grow stiff and awkward as he dug around, brushing what was probably her thigh through the pocket lining. Finally, he came up with his spanking-new pack of nicotine gum. He stepped back, opening the pack. With his thumb he popped out two squares and offered one to the girl. She shook her head and went to check on the woman again. Gendry popped the second square back into the pack, careful to pull the foil over it securely.

"Shit," the girl whispered.

Gendry looked up from the pack. The girl was pressing her fingers against the woman's neck. Gendry crossed to them.

"Can you feel anything?" He asked.

"I can't, my hands are frozen,"

Gendry stepped beside the chair and the girl moved aside. His fingers felt around the woman's neck, but he couldn't feel anything. The woman's eyes were open, her eyelashes a frosted ring around her cloudy green eyes. He waited a moment and tried a different spot. After a few more tries he met the girl's grey eyes. "I think she's dead," Gendry softly shook the woman's shoulder, then pressed his palm to her frozen face gently. By then several people had noticed them and medics were quizzically gathering around them now, speaking among each other. One of them asked if she was dead in a licentious voice while another pushed between Gendry and the girl and began probing at the woman. A second doctor joined him and pulled at the sheets around her, slowly unwrapping her until he revealed her nude torso to the group.

"What are you doing?" the girl yelled, pulling the doctors away from the little old lady. One man caught her by the arm and dragged her back from the group.

"Hey!" Gendry growled at the man, stepping between him and the girl. They exchanged a brief look, and the man rejoined the group. Gendry turned to the girl.

"Stop that!" she pleaded viciously as more men gathered around the body. When she tried to cross to the group, a large blonde nurse held his hand up at her, Gendry stepped close to her.

"She's dead, Beth," one of the doctors said, "stop your screeching,"

The bells rang through the courtyard, and everyone began ushering inside. Gendry just stood next to the girl for a moment, a bit unsure of himself. "Come," he touched her arm carefully, but she pulled free and stomped away in the snow.

One of medics that had gathered around the body began to push the chair toward the building, while the others followed, talking and laughing.

Gendry gritted his teeth, feeling sick with disgust.


	6. Chapter 6

It had been three days since the death of the old woman out in the gardens. The days that followed brought with them a storm that kept everyone indoors.

Once it cleared enough, Gendry decided to pay Jax a visit. Deep inside his chest, he held a little hope of running into the girl. Normally it irked him to run into anyone during his walks, but he didn't mind Beth.

As he neared the ferret's spot, he saw that she was standing there, facing out into the field while Jax explored the snow.

"Hey," Gendry called to her.

She turned. Her nose was red from the cold and her face was sullen. She gave a small nod, with a twitch of her eyebrows in place of a verbal greeting.

Gendry crossed his arms to keep warm and looked around. Everything was white, with bits of black writhing up where clusters of bare trees stood.

"Want to go for a walk?" he asked her, and she nodded, taking the lead. She started deeper into the field, instead of taking the road. Both Gendry and Jax followed.

They were a good distance from the manor, which looked no bigger than an acorn from where they'd stood. Once they walked into the woods, they could no longer see it.

Gendry picked up a branch, knocking the snow off it against a tree and turning it in his hand. They hiked down a hill in a comfortable silence, with just the crunching of snow and branches underneath, and Jax's sporadic slithering not too far behind them. After trekking deeper than he'd ever been, they found a small open area with a large fallen tree sprawled in the center. Gendry swiped the snow off the trunk with his branch before swinging it into the air. It startled Jax, who fell still and frozen, looking in the direction where the branch hit until he felt safe enough to continue exploring. When Gendry sat and pulled out the parchment with the bits of chicken, Jax darted toward them and in two swift moves, was on Gendry's lap.

"He likes you," Beth said with a small smile as she joined Gendry on the trunk. The smile didn't seem to reach her eyes.

Jax twisted and wiggled, snuggling his muzzle against Gendry's knee, before springing to the snow in a fit of hops and sprints.

"He just likes the food I bring him." Gendry flung bits of the chicken he was shredding between his fingers to the snow, but Jax didn't pay them any mind.

"It's not the food he's after. I'd just finished feeding him before you came,"

"He's a glut,"

"It's winter, he needs the extra fat."

Gendry nodded.

The trunk overlooked a frozen stream that branched off the canal. The air was stagnant and still between the trees, but just as biting. It smelled like frozen, rotten leaves, and crisp snow.

"My father used to tap the sap out of the birch trees we had in our property," she gestured to a cluster of white trees that were just a few yards downhill from where they sat.

"What for?"

"He made beer. And wine,"

Gendry wrinkled his nose with a small smile, "that sounds really good right about now,"

"It's too cold to get any, otherwise I'd say let's try it,"

He shook his head at her, "why the hell'd you bring it up, then."

Beth chuckled, then her smile faded and her face turned serious. "I know where Vlad keeps a stash of alcohol,"

Gendry turned to her, regarding her face.

"We should take some," she pressed her lips together, as if to keep from biting down on her bottom lip as he'd noticed her do before.

"That would certainly piss him off,"

"He'd throw a hissy fit," she was grinning now. Gendry smiled, catching her eyes with his. They looked a lighter grey in this light. She was wearing all black, her head in a knitted cap. Tuffs of brown hair poked out from underneath the cap and all around her face. She had on those blue spectacles of hers and at this proximity, he once again caught whiffs of the industrial grade soap they were made to use on everything from their clothes, dishes and personal care needs.

_She looks nice,_ he thought. His eyes found her lips, which had relaxed.

"We probably shouldn't" he turned away.

Jax was sniffling at the chicken, taking tentative nibbles at it.

"Are you scared of him?" her face screwed up like a child's.

"Of Vlad?" Gendry grimaced, "No! I am not scared of him. He's a tosser,"

"Well, then?" her eyebrows shot up.

"There's no saying what sort of shit he'll try to pull over it. He might ask for a safe just to lock up his precious booze. He might ask for an extra latch for his room. Hell, he might ask me to search the entire goddamn hospital. Point is, he'll expect me to take care of it because no one else will give a damn, and I will have no other choice but to do whatever he tells me to."

Beth rolled her eyes.

She clicked her tongue at Jax, but he was preoccupied with the stiff, frozen chicken and didn't even look in their direction.

"It'll be getting dark soon," Gendry rose to his feet.

Beth followed him back through the woods and to the path. Jax followed them until they made it to the main dirt road that ran along the canal, then he wiggled away.

The sky was a dark blue-grey by the time they made it back to the manor and a mist was beginning to enclose the fields around them. When they walked through the main doors of the clinic, Gendry turned to Beth, about to ask if she was hungry, but was cut off when Ness found them. Her heels clicked as she hurried toward him. She looked distressed.

Gendry frowned, brows furrowed.

"Harald is dead," Ness informed him.

Gendry's insides sunk. "What?"

"He passed away about two hour ago. We've been looking for you,"

Gendry looked down at the floor, unsure of how he felt or what to do or what this all meant. Fuck.

_Fuck._


	7. Chapter 7

They were all gathered in the common hall, sitting at one of the long tables at the end of the room. Vlad was there. As well as Mikael, and Gunnar Hessel and Ness. Lily Oslin, the director of the hospice ward was there too. All but Harriet. Harald was her husband and Gendry wasn't surprised by her absense.

The small group of doctors and nurses doubled as the board at the clinic, and had been waiting to meet with Gendry as soon as they found out about Harald.

"You're gonna have to bring someone in to help me," Gendry sat across the table from the small group.

"We have been trying to bring someone in since William took off," Mikael explained. He was the head chemist but also made a lot of the executive decisions at the hospital along with Fru Oslin.

"I can't do this on my own," Gendry shook his head. He refused to add on to his workload when new repairs piled on daily.

"We will keep searching, but you must understand that with current state out country is in, no one wants to come work here. News of the bombing and pillaging in smaller villages like ours has made it out. Between that and how cold it's been this winter, people opt to stay in the city facilities, where they are also currently short staffed,"

"Perhaps we can reach out to Mark in London," Lily Oslin offered. "Or perhaps someone from overseas,"

Mikael nodded. "Yes, we will try everything in our power to aid in this unfortunate situation. Ness, if you will please reach out to everyone we need to and inquire about any staff they can spare. In the meantime, I've asked Gerardo to help alleviate with some of the work load." he told Gendry, "Back in Granada he helped his brother in law repair office appliances, he has some knowledge of hardware. Give him the simpler tasks, and keep the main ones for yourself,"

"I don't need someone to take over the stupid jobs. That's my job. We need someone with the same knowledge and experience Harald had. I don't know half of what he knew, and I don't have 30 years experience like he had. We were already struggling with the issues as is."

"Again, we understand and have done all in our power to work through this. Gunnar will be leaving soon and taking Anna and Joel with him. Harriet has notified us that she will no longer continue on with us. She said she cannot stay now that Harald is gone. Ness will be taking over the supplier forms. We will have the budget to hire. In fact we can offer you a raise, and move you up from 10 hours to 12."

"It's not about a raise, I can't do this on my own. I don't want Gerardo. I don't have the energy or time to train him,"

"Make the time," Vlad snipped.

"Thank you for your time and cooperation," Lily Oslin told Gendry, and the group began to collect themselves and rise off their chairs. Gendry was the first out out of the room. He was fuming, and upset.

He wouldn't call Harald a friend, but the man had been a sort of a mentor to Gendry. He wasn't terribly unpleasant to be around either. It shocked him how sudden his death had been. From what he'd gathered, he had an upper respiratory infection. It must have been a very severe one if it took only a few days to kill him.

"Gendry!" a voice called out to him down the corridor.

It was Ness, running after him in her bloody heels. It was a miracle she hadn't twisted her ankle in them.

"What is it?"

She hesitated a bit when she saw the expression in his face.

"Ness," he urged her on.

"Look, I know you probably don't want to hear this right now, but Harald was working on an MRI device before he got sick. He didn't get to finish. It's in his room upstairs. I understand from Harriet that they were really plaguing him to finish it. He was even working after hours on it."

"I have a lot going on,"

"They want you to finish the repairs on it as soon as possible,"

Gendry inhaled to keep from snapping at her.

"Don't shoot the messenger," she said.

"Give me a day to get things sorted out. I need to figure out all this shit with Gerardo, and once i know what i'll be doing about it, I'll get on that MRI."

Ness nodded, "I'll let them know," she said.

Gendry could feel a headache coming on. He'd been hungry earlier, but didn't think he could eat anything now. He stormed into his room and dug around through his drawer until he came up with the pack of cigarettes. He'd grown tired of buying a new one anytime he got a craving, so he kept a pack handy. He should go upstairs and try to find some food instead. _Should. But wouldn't._

He grabbed the old, rolling stool he kept by his bed and pushed the side door open, setting the stool down at the bottom of the exterior stairway that led up to the ground level from his basement room.

There was still snow on the steps leading up, and everything was too wet to sit on.

He planted himself on the stool and pulled a cigarette out of his pack, placing it between his lips. He sparked a match to life and lit the tip, feeling the delicious relief take over him as the first pull of smoke filled him.

He leaned his head back on the stone wall and looked up. There was some clouds, but between them, he could see stars. So many stars. He exhaled and for a moment, the stars were consumed by cigarette smoke.

Gendry reveled in the moment, letting the cold numb him and the smoke warm his insides. His head still ached and there was a small pull in his stomach he ignored. The cold air stung in his nose and for a moment, he thought he should just sit there forever, inhaling cold air and warm smoke, ignoring his body's needs and just gazing up at the stars. Everyone and everything else could just fuck off.

A man's voice carried over from the garden. Gendry pushed off the wall, and sat up alert.

A second voice called out, but Gendry couldn't catch what they were saying.

After a moment, a dark figure began descending the stairs, with quiet and hurried steps. Gendry stood and immediately heard a soft voice shushing him before he could speak up.

"It's me," the voice whispered, and it took Gendry only a moment to recognize it.

"Beth? What's going on?" Gendry whispered back at her.

"They're looking for me," she was at the bottom of the steps, catching her breath against the wall beside him.

"Who is?" Gendry looked up to the top of the steps.

Another voice called out. This one closer than the other two.

Gendry pulled his door open, letting Beth step in first, before following her, stool in hand, and closing the door quietly behind him.

"Why are they looking for you?" he set his stool down next to the bed and sat, dropping the cigarette on the stone floor and twisting it dead.

The girl regarded him for a moment, nibbling on her bottom lip as her eyes searched his face for something.

He waited, watching as she caught her breath. His eyes followed as she crossed to his bed to sit.

"Why do you live down here?" she asked, instead of answering his question.

"There was no rooms when I started working. There was more workers back then. They offered me William's room when he left but I didn't take it." He pointed to the furnace, "It's warm down here in the winter. And cooler in the summer,"

She stood to walk around, looking at all the old and broken machinery around them as if she were in some sort of museum.

"Did you do something?" he asked after a few minutes.

"Hmm?" she wasn't looking at him.

"Why were they chasing you? Did you do something?"

"Have you worked here long?"

"About 10 months,"

"Do you like it here?"

Gendry thought about it for a moment. "It's just work. What's there to like? It keeps me fed, and I have somewhere to sleep. That's all you can expect under the circumstances,"

"Where would you be if not here?"

Gendry straightened his back, shifting his weight on the stool.

"I don't know. Working somewhere else. Where would you be?"

"Home. With my family."

"Why aren't you?" he asked, but she didn't answer. "I don't have a family, otherwise I'd want to be with them too, I suppose."

There was an old, iron lung against the back wall that she was sliding her hands over it. He was growing antsy and impatient.

"You never told me how you knew about the secret tunnels underground."

No answer. _Or how you knew about Vlad's liquor stash._ He only thought that up, but didn't want bring it up.

He remembered his conversation with Vlad a few days back; About the missing body.

"Did you hear about the old woman, the one who froze to death outside? Vlad said her body went missing. That same night in fact, just as the storm came in, while everyone was sleeping, someone took the body out of the morgue, and no one's seen it since."

The girl reeled then. Gendry disliked the heat that veined through him suddenly, as he caught full sight of her standing there with an analytical expression in her eyes, deeply searching his.

"What did you do, Beth? Who was chasing after you out there?"

Her eyebrows furrowed and underneath them her glassy eyes held a mixture of emotions he couldn't quite figure out in the dim lighting of the basement fixtures.

"That's not my name," she finally let out softly.

He frowned.

"They all think that's my name. My papers all say Elizabeth Phillips. It's not really my name. No one here knows my real name or who I really am,"

Gendry sighed. He waited for her to say something else. But she didn't. She'd refused to answer any of his questions this entire time. The revelation of her being someone else other than who any of them had believed her to be added more weight to their conversation than he needed at that moment, and he became overwhelmed with exhaustion. He stood from the stool and pulled his shoes off, then his jacket. He stole a glance in her direction. She was still standing by the iron lung, her eyes cast down. He pulled off his shirt and undid his trousers, leaving only his long johns on.

"I'm tired," he told her, "I need to go to sleep. Look, you can keep your secrets. I don't really care. And I won't tell anyone you're not really Beth, alright. No one will learn that from me. But I really need to rest. I have a shit storm to work through tomorrow."

He could feel the girl looking at him. He pulled back his covers about to slide under, when he heard her voice.

"My name is Arya,"

His eyes darted to her. Hers had the same sullen look he'd seen in them earlier, when they'd gone out for a walk with Jax.

"They found me in the old ICU ward where they're setting up the incubators, that's why they were chasing me,"

"What were you doing there?" Gendry could feel his throat closing up.

"Ruining them,"

He straightened up, feeling anger rise in him. His mouth was open and his eyes grew wide. He tried to think of how to utter a coherent sentence, but nothing came he was thinking made sense and it all washed over him too quickly.

"They are sick people, with sick minds. They're doing things, evil things,"

"It's been you? You've been breaking the machines?"

Her eyes fell to the floor and she nodded, then rose to meet his, large and grey and cold.

"I'm the shit storm," she said.

Gendry could only blink stupidly.


End file.
